Startups are often carried away by their tech prowess, over-designing their products beyond the actual needs of their customers, according to Singapore-based AImazing founder Jun Ting. In an interview by Digitimes, Ting, whose company helps stores analyze offline data, reveals how the pandemic has taught him a lesson about understanding customers' needs. In China, handset vendors are ready to launch new 5G phones in a bid to make up lost ground from Apple, who has made major gains in the Chinese market in fourth-quarter 2020 thanks to strong sales of its iPhone 12 family. Demand for products and services across all semiconductor segments have tightened capacity supply or sent prices rising. For some Taiwan-based IC testers, they have an alternative to directly raising their service quotes: they have their clients shoulder part of the costs of components needed to process their orders.Understanding what customers really need: Q&A with AImazing founder Jun Ting: AImazing, founded in 2015, was groomed by Taiwan-based accelerator AppWorks. AImazing, which set up its headuqarters in Singapore and R&D base in Taiwan in 2017, was about to take off with its acoustic application when regulation changes in the Southeast Asian city state curbed its mobile payment services.Chinese brands to launch new 5G phones to compete with iPhone 12: China's handset vendors reportedly are ready launch an array of 5G high-end and budget phones starting January, seeking to recover lost ground from Apple's iPhone 12 lineup, according to industry sources.Taiwan IC testers ask clients to procure own process components: Taiwan-based IC testing houses have asked their fabless and IDM clients to shoulder some of the components costs needed to process their orders, a measure tantamount to raising prices, according to industry sources.

AImazing, founded in 2015, was groomed by Taiwan-based accelerator AppWorks. AImazing, which set up its headuqarters in Singapore and R&D base in Taiwan in 2017, was about to take off with its acoustic application when regulation changes in the Southeast Asian city state curbed its mobile payment services.Digitimes recently did a remote interview with AImazing founder Jun Ting to see how the startup has survived that setback in Singapore and how the coronavirus pandemic has changed its fortune.Q: How did AImazing survive the sudden regulatory changes that hit it hard in Singapore?A: Looking back at the footsteps of the company in the past five years, the acoustic application was AImazing's third product. We didn't really find the product-market fit until that third product, but this (regulation change) happened. Fortunately, these problems happened at the early stage. If it had been in the B or C round of fundraising, we would have had to face more investors and handle a bigger team.AImazing was a team of about 10-15 people at that time, and there was no way to continue because of the regulation change. The year 2018 was our low point, but we quickly found a new direction and now still have a team of six software development and data analyticsengineers in our R&D center in Taiwan to remotely support our services. Ou team members in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia total more than 30 people, and our market presence has expanded to the Philippines, where our local partners are running the business.Q: What's your latest products? What is the pain point that you want to solve?A: The idea of our latest product came from a meeting with Facebook in Singapore at the end of 2018. Facebook was exploring the possibility of working with AImazing, because we do transaction authentication for many electronic wallets. Visa and Master are the companies that have the best grasp of offline spending, but they can only know the total amount of money a user spent at a particular store, not the details of that spending. This inspired us to develop a new idea.AImazing's business model now is to integrate and analyze offline data to provide merchants with customer loyalty program solutions. Artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies are very mature and advanced, but the biggest problem is how to get the data offline. Offline is a very fragmented market, and in Taiwan and Singapore alone, there are probably hundreds of POS systems in operation. Our core technology is to get data from different POS systems and analyze it in a more efficient way.We built a platform and put all the offline data on it, and we also have our own app through which each company can get offline data. Of course, we still need to obtain the consent of the store first. Our service targets may even be restaurant chains with many outlets using different POS machines. They can put the data on our platform first, and then take the needed data from there. Customers can get clean and uniform data in a single docking. Even AC Nielsen is working with us because data on the cloud can also very confusing. We recently discovered by accident that 45% of our customers are using cloud POS systems.Q: It seems that AImazing has found a niche and a sweet spot, but in what ways has COVID-19 affected the company?A: Thanks to the COVID-19, we originally thought we were a "b2B" company and our customers should be big companies. Before the pandemic, we worked very hard to help banks and FMCG companies like Unilever, P&G and hypermarkets do online-to-offline data tracking in real time.After Singapore imposed a lockdown in April, we added a new feature to our product - a cashback loyalty program solution integrated with Facebook Messenger.Why do you need this service? Because many stores think they are already digital; after all, they are already using POS, and have joined many cloud-based delivery and cashback discount platforms, such as FoodPanda and Deliveroo. However, when the outbreak occurred, individual stores offered big discounts trying to attract customers to come and spend, but their promotional messages could not reach their customers.Each company in the market operates its own loyalty program independently. If a store wants to notify customers, they can only do so by phone, or they pay for their own advertising. Our loyalty program is integrated with Facebook's Messenger, which allows stores to advertise on Facebook and send directly to specific customers, enhancing the effectiveness of advertising.Q: What are your plans for future market expansion?The pandemic has allowed AImazing to be more aware of what customers really need. People working in the tech industry for a long time may tend to be carried away by their tech prowess, and they are prone to over-design and make products that are technologically advanced but ignore the real needs of customers. Data analysis may be useful for bigger companies whose operations teams can log on to get data and see reports. However, smaller stores may not be able to log on to see the data because of the digital gap or because they are simply too busy to do so.What this tells us is that we used to think that big data analysis is very powerful, but small stores find it very complicated and don't have the time to learn how to do it, thinking that they only need the simplest monthly report. When we put aside our own misconceptions and responded to the needs of our SME customers by sending simple monthly profit-and-loss reports through Whatsapp's API, the usage rate went straight up.The product has been so effective in boosting sales that hundreds of stores have joined our platform, and we've seen over 200% growth compared to the pre-pandemic period. We started the year 2020 with a team of 10 and now we have over 30 people. Our cash flow is very strong and will be fine for the next two to three years, and we plan to raise Series A in 2021 to continue our international expansion. But we won't put too much thought into raising capital; we're only looking for strategic investors who can help open another door.We would have expanded to Thailand and Indonesia in 2020, but due to the pandemic, we are postponing all such plans to 2021. In the future, after the pandemic has subsided, our expansion will still focus on Southeast Asian countries. My goal for 2021 is to increase the number of storesusing our services by 10-fold, with 3-5-fold definitely achievable.Q: How did you find your partner in the Philippines?A: Our partner was looking for such a solution, and his father is the co-founder of a big supermarket chain in the Philippines. We spent nine months bonding and getting to know the local market and environment. I traveled to the Philippines for a week every month to determine how to implement our solution there and to develop the business together.It's worth mentioning that the Internet environment in the Philippines is the same to that in China, where most people skip the PCs and go straight to mobile phones, so their computers are very, very old. The power supply and the network are very unstable, so we had to solve the problem of sudden disconnection of the network service. First we did a proof of concept (POC) to make sure the solution was available locally, and he eventually became our investor. So not only is he running the Philippines operation, but also helping implement and deploy the solution and working with international data analytics organizations.AImazing founder Jun Ting (left) and two of his core team membersPhoto: Company

When tough US sanctions against Huawei took effect in mid September, Taiwanese chip suppliers did lose massive orders from one of their biggest clients. But Taiwan's IC ecosystem has since seen the void filled up by strong demand from the 5G, AI, HPC and automotive sectors. Foundry capacity has been tight, resulting in shortages and rising prices in some components segments, such as DDI chips. PCB makers have also seen copper foil prices rising amid increasingly tight supply.Taiwan IC ecosystem unscathed by Huawei ban: The impact of Huawei's woes on its Taiwan-based chip suppliers has been smaller than expected, according to industry sources.Novatek and other DDI chip suppliers to raise quotes for 1Q21: A number of Taiwan-based LCD driver IC suppliers, including Novatek Microelectronics, have completed talks with downstream clients over raising quotes for their TDDI and DDI chips in the first quarter of 2021, according to industry sources.PCB makers to see copper foil shortage in 1H21: Taiwan's PCB industry is expected to face shortages of upstream materials in first-half 2021, particularly copper foils for both general and high-end applications, according to industry sources.

Taiwan's investors should change their mentality about entrepreneurships, giving more support to startups, according to Wistron chairman Simon Lin.Lin pointed out that many of Taiwan's venture capital (VC) firms would require startup founders to shoulder part of the investments in their businesses as a way to show their commitment. But this puts the startup founders in a make-or-break situation where failures would leave them broke, Lin said.In Israel, where Wistron is also investing in startups there, most entrepreneurs operate their startups with VC. They do not have to worry about financial support for their innovative ideas, and although many startups have ended in failure, local VC firms are still willing to inject more funds into supporting entrepreneurships, Lin said.Wistron, which was spun off from the Acer Group in 2000, started reorganizing its structure to enhance competitiveness and formed a VC team to invest in its upstream and downstream partners, Lin noted.With Wistron becoming a major enterprise in Taiwan's ICT industry in 2010, Lin said the company set up corporate venture capital (CVC) hoping that its investment could help the company overcome its bottleneck at the time.From 2010 to 2020, Wistron's CVC injected a total of US$4 million into 50-60 companies. In addition to having outside teams evaluate investment targets, Wistron's management team also participated in many of the investment projects. As a result, many of the investments became strategic moves to assist Wistron's existing projects, Lin stated.At the moment, Wistron's CVC is still mainly investing in strategic items that fit the company's future projects, but Lin said he is hoping to have CVC expand the targets to new categories of the future.Wistron is a hardware maker and combining hardware with the new economy is necessary for the company to create added value, said Lin.Wistron chairman Simon LinPhoto: Digitimes file photo

Apple has put two of its manufacturers on probation due to labor isssues, which may tighten supply of iPhones. DRAM spot maket prices have shot up recently as suppliers start scaling down their output. DRAM prices in the spot market are now 20% higher than in the contract market. PCB materials, such as copper foil, are set to see prices rally in 2021, as supply will be increasingly short of demand.iPhone supply may become tight due to labor issues at Apple production partners: Pressure is mounting to maintain steady supply of iPhone devices, including the iPhone 12 lineup, after Apple placed two of its phone assemblers on probation due to labor issues, according to industry sources.DRAM spot prices surge: Spot market prices for DRAM memory have surged recently and reached levels that are over 20% higher than contract market prices, according to sources at memory module houses.PCB materials prices set to rise in 2021: Prices for upstream PCB materials including copper foil, glass cloth and resin are set to rally in 2021 as supply is expected to be increasingly short of demand throughout the year, according to industry sources.

Heron Neutron Medical has invested NT$800 million (US$27.7 million) to set up an A-BNCT (accelerator-based boron neutron capture therapy) R&D and production base at Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, northern TaiwanHeron president Leo Shen said an A-BNCT total therapeutic solution will be developed in line with technological development for recognizing tumors via AI-based image diagnosis, development of new targeted drugs containing boron and auxiliary apparatus in a bid to boost development of precision medicine in Taiwan.A-BNCT uses neutrons in combination with boron-containing drugs to minimize damage of normal cells and hike therapeutic effect in brain cancers, Shen indicated.Government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and National Tsing Hua University had cooperated in R&D of A-BNCT technology for years until Heron acquired the technology, Shen noted.Heron aims at starting clinical experiments at medical centers in Taiwan in 2023 and obtaining a license from Taiwan Food and Drug Administration in 2025, Shen indicated.Heron is a subsidiary of Hermes-Epitek, a semiconductor and optoelectronics equipment maker.Hermes-Epitek vice chairman CY Shu (right) and Heron Neutron Medical president Leo ShenPhoto: Monica Chen, Digitimes, December 2020

Makers in China usually have to reduce output during the Lunar New Year holiday. But they may have to reduce production earlier than usual for the upcoming holidays that officially start in February, as local government authorities are forcing migrant workers to go home early, advancing the period of massive migration for family reunions to reduce risks of COVID-19 infections. Notebook makers who expect orders from clients to remain robust during first-quarter 2021 are offering extra bonuses for workers willing to continue working during the upcoming holidays. The notebook ODMs want to make sure they have enough output during the holidays to fulfill clients' demand, but short supply of components, apart from labor shortage, may hinder their production. Components shortages have also been constraining the supply of SSDs although the market for NAND flash remains oversupplied.China labor shortage to worsen amid anti-virus measures ahead of holidays: Due to the approaching Lunar New Year holidays, some cities in China have introduced new precautionary measures to prevent a possible resurge of the coronavirus pandemic, which may worsen labor shortages in the country in January-February, according to industry sources.Notebook suppliers to keep more workers during upcoming holidays in China: As clients' notebook orders for the first quarter of 2021 are expected to remain strong, many in China's notebook upstream supply chain are set to offer extra bonuses to persuade workers to continue working during the Lunar New Year holidays in Fenruary 2021, according to industry sources.SSD supply constrained by chip shortages: The market for NAND flash memory remains oversupplied, but shortages of flash device controllers and passive components have constrained the supply of SSD and other related peripherals, according to industry sources.

US-based II-VI is expected to supply VCSEL chips, which will be used in ToF LiDAR scanners for the next-generation iPhones set to be released next year, to Apple. Meanwhile, Taiwan server makers' shipments are expected to be brisk in 2021 thanks to strong demand and new CPU platforms from Intel and AMD. Insufficient wafer foundry support has also benefited second-tier IC design houses and will boost their profitability in the fourth quarter of 2020.II-VI to enter supply chain for iPhones with LiDAR sensors, sources say: US-based II-VI is expected to enter the supply chain for Apple's next-generation iPhones by fabricating VCSEL chips for time-of-flight (ToF) LiDAR scanners, according to industry sources.Taiwan server makers upbeat about shipment prospects for 2021: Taiwan's server makers are generally upbeat about their shipment prospects for 2021 thanks mainly to strong demand for datacenter applications and server replacement boom to be driven by the launch of new x86 server processors probably in first-quarter next year, although the pandemic remains the largest variable that may affect their normal production and shipments, according to industry sources.Second-tier IC design houses to enjoy profit growth in 4Q20: Tight foundry capacity resulting in insufficient chip supplies and rising chip ASPs already buoyed Taiwan's first-tier fabless chipmakers' profits in the third quarter. Such scenario has started favoring smaller-scale fabless firms, particularly display driver IC suppliers, according to industry sources.

Combined sales of OLED panels by Samsung Display and LG Display (LGD) for small- to medium-size applications are expected to reach KRW9.6 trillion (US$9.4 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 46.2% sequentially and 31.2% on year, according to an estimate by Digitimes Research.The optimistic prospects come after both firms experienced increased revenues and shipments for small- to medium-size OLED panels in the previous quarter, driven by growing demand from the smartphone and wearable sectors.Demand for OLED panels from the smartphone sector has rebounded as the pandemic-induced impacts on the handset supply chain have eased, while the launch of Apple's all OLED iPhone 12 lineup has encouraged other handset brands to also adopt OLED panels for their mid-range to high-end models, Digitimes Research said.In 2021, OLED-based models are expected to account for 40% of global smartphone shipments, said Digitimes Research. Besides, demand for OLED panels for Apple Watch devices is likely to double in the coming year.To cash in on increasing demand, both LGD and Japan Display (JDI) have accelerated their expansion projects for ramping up OLED panels.As Samsung Electronics has already launched three foldable smartphones built using flexible OLED panels, Digitimes Research believes that Apple will likely step into the foldable smartphone sector in 2022, furthering demand for flexible OLED displays.In response to increasing demand, Samsung Display has expanded its monthly flexible OLED module capacity to 900,000 units in the second half of 2020.

The LCD panel sector has seen tight supply, thanks to strong demand for applications supporting stay-at-home needs in the wake of the pandemic. But the LCD shortage has worsened recently because of production disruptions at suppliers, according to AUO chairman Pauel Peng. The stay-at-home needs have also been fueling notebook sales, with the global top-5 brand vendors' combined shipments staying at high levels in November. In the memory sector, DRAM inventory has dropped to low levels in end markets, with spot DRAM prices expected to start rising later this month.LCD panel shortage worsening, says AUO chairman: The shortage of LCD panels has worsend after a strong earthquake struck northeastern Taiwan and a power outage hit glass substate supplier Nippon Electric Glass (NEG) in Japan recently, according to Paul Peng, chairman of AU Optronics (AUO).Global top-5 brands see combined shipments reach second highest level in November: The global top-5 brands' combined notebook shipments in November 2020 remained robust, reaching the second highest-ever monthly level, thanks to strong sales in Europe and North America amid the resurging coronavirus pandemic, according to Digitimes Research's latest figures from the Notebook Tracker.DRAM spot prices to start rising later in December: DRAM spot prices will start rising in the second half of December, with the rally set to persist through January 2021, according to industry sources.